Dad was scary. That's how it was when we were young. Perspective underwent expected changes as we grew, but in the "early years", Dad was scary.
When you grow up in a home with two parents who fall into two classifications - strong, resilient and pragmatic mother with unshakable belief in "the good fight", and a father who persisted in placing faith in the unattainable dream, you learn straight-away that the power balance is apt to shift wildly and unpredictably. It was imperative that one read the signs, and the signs took on greater import when you toss in the variable of "hopeless alcoholic." Of course, in the early years, "hopeless alcoholic" wasn't the label you could have understood, much less invoke with raised fist or righteous clenched jaw - you simply were too young to attach such labels. At that time, it translated into the uncomplicated self-mandate to look at the face... look at the face. Some of us became really good at that. And when the German marching music or Mexican mariachi vibes invaded every nook, cranny and crevice of our cramped 7-room Cape, we saw it as another unmistakable sign; uh-oh! Dad's channeling his inner drunk. He was a mean drunk. Every past personal failure leeched vilely from his brain, and coursed through his body; anyone in his path became his helpless prey.
Much of life's pleasure for me is somehow connected with my successes in creating or re-creating things with textiles. It's so true now, and it was true way back when my mom first trained me to operate a sewing machine and then when she guided me to re-upholster a piece of furniture. My mom and I worked together on a sad Louis XIV accent chair. As you can imagine, the intimate joining of two pairs of hands in a singular effort left as much of an impression as the finished product. Later, when dusting and tidying up in the living room, I took special care to assure that Louis was most overtly cared for.
What's that smell? I asked my sister Margaret one day. With an electric stove and an oil-burning furnace, wood smoke was not an odor that we should have sensed inside 415 Titicut. Inhaling deeply and as rapidly as we could, we followed our noses to the living room where we found a smoking father. Dad was hunched over in the Louis with smoke rising from his crotch. "Oh, shit! Dad's on fire!" I exclaimed, and ran to fill a dutch oven with water from the faucet. Returning to the scene, Margaret close on my heels, I abruptly stopped, the water sloshing over the sides of the pot. Turning to Margaret I said, "You need to dump this on Dad's crotch! NOW!" As any sane-minded, memory-laden daughter of an alcoholic father would behave, she froze. My statuesque (in the physical sense) younger sister stood motionless while I turned with the pot toward my smoking, drunken-stupored father, then back to her, back to him, back to her. Flustered to the point where reason had long fled my body, I lifted the pot. . . and dumped it over her head. Not on the fire, mind you, but on my sister's head! Her shrieks awakened the sleeping, smoking giant. With shaky-sounding composure, I said (in the most unaffected voice that I could conjure), "Um, Dad, you're on fire." I pointed to his crotch, though I thought the gesture redundant, and he responded - with equal lack of affect, "Oh, I guess you're right." He stood and observed the growing smoking hole in the seat of Louis. Pointless in the extreme, I raced to collect more water to douse Louis. Louis never recovered. . . or I should say, I never "recovered" Louis. (Har-har!) He was a gonner. The indelible memory was never the reupholstered "veneer" of Louis; it was the shared memory of making something new with my mom.
(The dutiful daughter in me needs to allow for an accurate record. Dad taught me many skills when I was young that, even if I don't utilize them now, I can boast that I know how to do. He taught me how to re-caulk a window, operate a circular saw, and wire an outlet. Perhaps he forgot that I was "just a girl"; I'd rather believe that he was a believer that ANYONE can do ANYTHING.)
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